What’s Worth Watching: Staying Alive Stream

Silicon Valley, “Two Days of the Condor” (Sunday, June 14, 10/9c, HBO)

One man’s tragedy is another man’s web traffic. At the end of last week’s Silicon Valley, Pied Piper’s live stream of a soon-to-hatch condor’s egg caught an unlucky park ranger’s 127 Hours-style plummet into a mountain crevasse. Tonight, thousands of Internet rubberneckers head to the website to watch him cry, sweat, and drink his own pee while awaiting rescue. The problem: The guys didn’t intend for their servers to handle so many users. And Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani), Erlich (T.J. Miller), and Jared (Zach Woods) must scramble to prevent the site from crashing. It’s funny, exciting (there’s a fire!), and bittersweet—especially since, at the same time, Richard (Thomas Middleditch) is in court waiting to hear a judge rule that they must hand Pied Piper over to Hooli. You’ll be punching the air in victory one moment, and wanting to punch someone in the face the next—just like when you’re trying to get your laptop to run a live stream.